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Saturday, 8 April 2017

The Middle Ages by Hourly History - Book Review

This is a short take on the Middle Ages by Hourly History, compiling most of the major events that took place during this era. The Middle Ages comprises the period from the fall of the Roman Empire till the European Renaissance.

This book is structured sequentially, going on from early Middle Ages, how Christianity was a unifying factor in Europe and the actions of the Charles Martel fending off the Moors at the Battle of Tours and the subsequent success of his grandson, Charlemagne. The book also focused on the other major events during the time, such as the Black Death.

I would say that this book was a noble attempt considering, the Middle Ages is not talked about and the book did pick up some of the major events, some of which has a whole book by Hourly History such as The Black Death and Charlemagne, eventually the Crusades and signing of the Magna Carta, during the later part of Middle ages.

However, the book seemed to focus more on the spread of Christianity in Europe than the society, governing structure (no word on serfdom, for instance) and the various internal squabbles that took place during the year. The Middle Ages is incomplete without a mention of the advent of Islam and how it reached Iberia and the advancement of Iberia scientifically and culturally under the Moors. Agreed, the book did touch upon the Spanish Moors and how Islam reached till Hungary through the Turks but that was about it. The crux of the problem was that the Middle Ages was too long a period, squeezing nearly ten centuries into one book was definitely going to compromise the quality and that was the problem with this book.

Based on the shortcomings, I would award the book a rating of three on ten.